


The Umbrella Man

by Ranni



Series: All the Ways [5]
Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner & Tony Stark Friendship, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Banner-centric, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Domestic Avengers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Illness, M/M, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Panic Attacks, Phobias, Protective Bruce Banner, Protective Clint Barton, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Science Bros, Sick Clint Barton, Team as Family, Thor Is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Is a Good Bro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2017-10-17
Packaged: 2019-01-18 08:31:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12384603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: “It’s still you inside of it”, Betty said, years ago. “You won’t hurt me, I know you won’t.” She thought, like the Avengers think now, that the Hulk is still mostly Bruce, that it has his decency at the core. They all trust that, confident that they can depend on the man inside the monster, that they will be safe.Bruce knows better.—or—Bruce Banner is not that kind of doctor. He’s (maybe, probably) not an agoraphobe. He is, as he tells Tony, the morality tale of the Avengers team.(All stories in this series can be read independently.)





	The Umbrella Man

*******

He’s _not_ that kind of doctor.

Bruce is fine with being their field medic—at least on missions when he hasn’t Hulked out—looking over the minor battle injuries that they don’t deem worthy of true medical attention, but steadfastly refuses to let that bleed over into their life at the Tower. It’s Thor and Steve that force the issue when they show up in Bruce’s lab one evening, Steve’s arm hanging at a disturbing angle and Thor looking not in the least bit sorry for being the cause.

“No," Bruce says firmly. "You need to see an actual medical doctor. I don't do broken bones."

“I just need you to set it,” Steve says. “My metabolism can heal it fine, but I’d prefer it didn’t heal crookedly.”

As it turns out, Captain America can be incredibly persuasive when so inclined, Steve steadily increasing the intensity of his puppy dog eyes and subtly moving his injured arm closer and closer until it’s practically in Bruce’s face and the scientist gives in. Then, in a mystifying chain of events, after the arm is set and splinted Bruce finds himself spending the remainder of the night taking x-ray after x-ray of different parts of Steve and Thor’s bodies, egged on by his own loneliness and their doubled-over laughter.

“My bones are biggest!” Thor announces proudly. He finds the images of pelvic bones especially hilarious, keeps holding them up to Steve’s body and grinning.

“Lucky for me that I’m pretty secure in my manhood—despite my inferior bone size,” Steve says, winking at Bruce, who finally calls the whole adventure quits when Thor starts insisting they x-ray Mjollnir.

 

*******

It’s supposed to be a secret, so naturally Tony finds out immediately.

And it’s as if he’s been poised all this time, just waiting to catch Bruce in the act of clandestine doctoring, because in less than a week the lab is outfitted with every piece of medical equipment possible. And—because it’s Tony—there’s more than a few gizmos in there that are theoretically _not_  possible.

Tony hangs up a framed x-ray of Thor and Steve’s skeletons shaking hands, then immediately demands treatment of his freshly hammered thumb.

”Fine,” Bruce concedes grudgingly. “I’ll do this thing and be your pet fake doctor, but I absolutely draw the line at looking at people’s weird rashes. Or even _discussing_ anything—and I mean  _anything_ , so help me God—to do with an Avenger’s sexual life.”

”Sure, sure,” Tony agrees, almost too readily. “Although imagine the primo gossip material you’ll be missing out on.”

 

*******

Bruce pores over every image of her like a scholar studying ancient texts, looking for meaning where there probably is none. He finds one where Betty is smiling broadly, her happy grin, and Bruce is happy too, but wonders what joke she is sharing, who is making her laugh now. He wishes that _he_ could be the cause of that smile. It's more likely that Bruce himself is the cause of Betty's tired eyes in yet another image, the tense set of her shoulders, her downturned mouth.

He’s an Avenger now, protected by SHIELD’s influence and a buffer of overpowered friends, a group so strong and fierce that they aren’t afraid to be around him, people that can’t be broken so easily as Betty. And for the first time in years he is free to be out into the world without looking over his shoulder for soliders and scientists, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Bruce, the man, is safe to be outside, but the monster that can slip free in spite of an iron fisted control is not.

It’s easier to stay right where he is; that control is so much easier to wield in the controlled and comfortable confines of the Tower.

The Hulk is known to the world now. The Avengers are known. Tony Stark is certainly known, as well as where he lives and who he lives with, and someone a lot less intelligent than Betty Ross could guess easily where Bruce Banner can be found these days. So it’s not really a surprise the day a letter arrives, his name written across the front in her flowy script.

The surprise comes when he can’t open it. He can’t bear to see what’s written there—if it’s a plea for him to come back, or the gentle brush off of an _I’ve moved on, hope you are well_. Both will hurt too much and threaten that tenuous peace he has found here, hard won after years of terror.

But he can’t throw that letter away any more than he can open it, and carries it in the pocket of his labcoat instead, fingering it like a worry stone. Time passes and the envelope grows worn and slight, and he dreads the day that thin shell of paper will drop away at last, and he’ll be faced with her words, whether or not he’s ready to see them.

Betty never writes again, and that also isn’t a surprise. No matter what the first letter says, Bruce is pretty sure he doesn’t deserve a second one.

 

*******

Natasha never comes to be patched up. She’s clever and quick, and on those rare occasions where she is injured she bypasses Bruce altogether and goes to SHIELD Medical. That alone makes Bruce suspect that she’s actually the smartest Avenger of them all.

Natasha doesn’t come for herself, but she _does_ , even more inexplicably, bring other people.

She shows up with the first one about a year after they all move into the Tower, a terrified looking man that she steers in by the shoulders. “Andrew has pneumonia and no insurance. I assured him that your rates are very reasonable.”

Andrew leaves later with a bottle of antibiotics and in considerably brighter spirits, and Bruce frowns at her. “How do you even know that guy?”

“He’s the grocery man,” Natasha says incredulously, then shakes her head at his blank expression. “He’s only brought the grocery order every Monday and Thursday morning for the last ten months. Jesus, Bruce, get out of your lab. _Everyone_ knows Andrew.”

Another time she brings in Rosalie (“She cleans the offices on Two.”). Then Richard (“He was in the army and it’s been rough since.”). Sometimes she’ll throw in a more familiar face (“Get the hell in here, Clint!”), but otherwise they are strangers or people Bruce only vaguely recognizes. He’s not sure how she finds them or knows that they need help, how she convinces them to follow her to Bruce.

“I’m not qualified to be doing this,” he reminds her regularly. “These people should be googling symptoms and scaring themselves like everyone else.”

Natasha always nods in agreement and then a few weeks later will bring somebody else.

She stands watch while he works, arms crossed and vaguely threatening, nothing maternal in her bearing that reflects the kindness they’re involved in. Bruce patches up strangers with the an unending supply of antibiotics and painkillers and steroids that Tony somehow acquires, keeping one eye on his patient and the other on Natasha.

She may well be an angel of mercy, but she’s definitely one of the terrifying, Old Testament kind.

  

*******

The Avengers have been called out again.

Bruce sits in the jet, listening to their conversation—quick and teasing when things are going well, terse and matter of fact when they aren’t—wanting to help while simultaneously dreading the form that his ‘helping’ takes.

If it were up to most of the others the Hulk would charge out with the Avengers immediately, the big green atom bomb that they would cheerfully bring to any firefight. And that’s why, every singled damned day—but especially on days like this one, mission days—Bruce Banner offers up a prayer of thanks that Captain America is the team leader.

Steve weighs it all somehow—not only the risk to the civilians the surround the fight, but also how Bruce will deal with the emotional fallout if the Hulk hurts the innocent or destroys the infrastructure that keeps communities intact. Steve weighs all of that against Bruce’s potential guilt if one of his teammates died while he sat listening in the jet, if they died just so he didn’t have to fight.

Steve makes the final call each time so that Bruce doesn’t have to, and silently shoulders any blame for it later.

Now Bruce waits and listens for Steve’s voice, holding Betty’s letter in twisted fingers. Wonders if it says _I saw the footage of the Battle of New York and was so proud,_ or something more like _What I saw on the news scared me to death; you were right to leave_. He runs his thumb across the front of the envelope again, where his name has long since been worn away.

The team piles back into the jet many hours later, exhausted but alive, the whole mission completed with Bruce contributing nothing. He looks over them for injuries, listening again as they rehash the fight, what went well, what could have gone better.

“I wish I could do more,” he says to Steve. “I wish I could help in a way that didn’t do more harm than good.”

“Just knowing you’re _here_ is a help,” Steve says, and Bruce sighs inwardly at how tired the captain sounds. “That you’ve got our backs if we need you.”

 

*******

“You and I are going out tonight!” Tony announces expansively, as if expecting Bruce to jump into his arms and squeal with glee. “It’s gonna be amazing!”

“Yeah, that’s a no.”

“No, that’s a _yeah_!”

“Why don’t you go out with Clint? My understanding is that’s what people do when they pair off.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “I asked him to come with us, but he’s turning in early. He’s apparently channeling Steve, the ultimate in anti-fun. So that leaves you and me. There will be food! And drinks! And music! And lights!” He waves dismissively at Bruce’s groan. “Come on, get out of your hidey hole. You’re turning yourself into an agoraphobe. People are gonna start referring to you as Old Hermit Banner. And by ‘people’, I mean _me_.”

“I’m not agoraphobic. Avoiding triggers that lead to catastrophic human death actually seems like a pretty reasonable idea to me.”

“And why _ever_  would you go out with your best friend when you can stay at home instead, staring at walls and test tubes and data, consumed with self flagellation and existential dread?” Tony slumps his shoulders and sticks out his lower lip in what Bruce supposes must be an impression of himself. “Why don’t you just go full wallow and scrawl ‘Life Sucks’ across your forehead in black marker?”

Bruce sighs and starts shutting his experiment down; there’s no point in pretending that Tony won’t wheedle and nag and push until he gets his way. “I’m not going to a club,” he warns. “I’m _not_ , so resign yourself to that ahead of time.”

“Sure, sure, we’ll hit up some crackpot art opening where people eat tiny sandwiches and nod knowingly.” Tony bounces on his heels but doesn’t gloat, at least not yet—he’ll wait until they’ve actually arrived somewhere. “Everyone murmuring over a bunch of squiggly lines on canvas, probably painted in the artist’s own piss, capped off with some overly pretentious title. Then everyone moves en masse to the next piece, a bunch of macrame knots that represent the major plot points of ‘Macbeth’.”

“That still sounds better than a club,” Bruce points out dryly, and Tony shrugs.

But by the time they make it to ground level it’s snowing so hard that even Tony has to admit defeat, lets himself be redirected into watching a movie at home with the others instead. Bruce makes the popcorn and tries not to think too much about his weak kneed relief that the outing didn’t happen, or about what that means.

 

*******

Clint comes to the labs about as rarely as Bruce goes to the archery range, so when he appears Bruce knows immediately that something is wrong. 

“I don’t feel so great,” he admits with difficulty, as if every word is wrung out by an invisible torturer, staring at the floor, the table, Thor and Steve’s x-ray—anywhere but in Bruce’s general direction.

“Okay.” Bruce can’t see anything bleeding or obviously broken, which is a nice change from Clint’s usual. “You’re gonna have to be a bit more specific. Do you feel like you have a cold or a virus or...?”

“I don’t know. I’m so tired. Like _super_ tired, right down to my bones. And cold, all the time, even with the heat cranked and a billion blankets. I feel like I’m going to fucking freeze to death.”

“How long have you felt this way?” He does actually look pretty pale, Bruce notes, starting to gather phlebotomy supplies as JARVIS helpfully displays some potential diagnoses on a nearby monitor.

“A few days.” It sounds honest enough, but Bruce knows the man is an instinctive and effortless liar, especially when it comes to his health, and silently substitutes ‘weeks’ for ‘days’.

“Maybe you’re a little anemic.” Bruce gestures toward a chair. “Let’s check your blood, huh?”

“Sure,” Clint says agreeably enough, obviously relieved now that the most uncomfortable part of the process—asking for help in the first place—is over. “I was anemic once before,” he says cheerfully, watching Bruce work with casual interest. “It ended up being pretty great because of all the extra steak and broccoli Phil made me eat.”

Bruce smiles back at him. They don’t spend a lot of time together—Clint is almost as restless as Tony, wanting to stay out in the field and busy—rather at odds with Bruce’s homebody status. But he’s always liked being around Clint, who has an easy trust that the Hulk won’t hurt him, and that Bruce can figure out almost any problem and put it right. So it’s pretty nice having Clint around, at least until JARVIS displays the test results.

 

*******

As much as Bruce hates to leave the Tower, and as much as he despises going into SHIELD, he does both now, all but frogmarching Clint Barton to the Medical unit. Bruce sits beside him during endless tests and then afterwards in the doctor’s office, imagining he looks a lot like Natasha all those times in the lab, with her suspicious scowl and crossed arms.

Somewhere inside him a Hulk shifts uncomfortably, hating the walls of SHIELD and all they represent, hating the equipment in Medical and the memories they inspire, hating the suspicious eyes he and Bruce imagine they feel at their back. But most of all they both hate the way Clint stares glumly at the pill bottles on the doctor’s desk, lined up like orange soldiers.

( _Weak_ ) the Hulk mutters.

It’s more a worried observation than a sneering condemnation, and Bruce finds himself in rare agreement with his more unforgiving side. This isn’t supposed to happen. The Avengers are supposed to be stronger than everyone else, so strong that they can be around Bruce and still be safe. Clint being sick means the others can be sick, that maybe they aren’t as strong as he had hoped. It doesn’t seem quite fair that they can still be broken, when it isn’t even his fault.

“I don’t get why my thyroid would suddenly stop working,” Clint says doubtfully. “I’ve never heard of that. Come on, that’s not a real thing, is it?”

“Pituitary gland,” the doctor corrects for the third time, and Bruce feels a stab of irritation because Clint _knows_ that. He’s just playing dumb for whatever reason he has—whatever it is inside that compels him to play every single issue as close to the chest as possible, _especially_ when it comes to what he knows and understands.

“There can be a lot potential causes,” the doctor says, “but in your case I suspect repeated trauma to the area.”

Bruce snorts derisively—‘Repeated Head Trauma’ could be the title of Barton’s biography. Clint glares at him briefly before resuming his confused, skeptical look. It’s a little creepy the way he changes expressions so easily, flipping through them like a deck of cards.

Clint gestures toward the pill bottles. “So I just take these? Forever?”

“Yes.”

“Well...that’s not so bad, I guess.” Clint grins and something inside Bruce twists painfully.

“As soon as your blood levels stabilize you’ll be able to go back in the field.”

Then they’re talking about handling medications during longer term ops, Clint at ease now that conversation has turned toward practicalities, but for Bruce the room narrows to one pinprick of light, the voices faint and far away. He grips the arms of the chair, his hands so tense they feel like they might snap off at the wrist, the Hulk a writhing, howling thing inside of him that wants to come out, to smash diplomas off walls, scatter those pill bottles. To wipe that look of bored professionalism from the doctor’s face, the dismissiveness from Clint’s. To shake them both and roar that it’s actually  _not_ okay—not okay how SHIELD has used Hawkeye, not okay how he has eagerly complied. That it’s not okay for them to send him back out at the earliest opportunity, that it’s not okay for him to _want_ to go back.

It’s been a month since the Avengers were last called out—the day that Bruce sat in the jet and listened while the others fought. Maybe it had happened then, the definitive hit after a lifetime of too many, until a part of Clint was finally broken permanently. The last bit air seems to leave the room when Bruce reminds himself that Clint and the others had fought harder than necessary that day just so _he_  wouldn’t have to fight at all.

“ _Hey_ ,” someone is saying faintly, and Bruce blinks until that voice sharpens from nothing-worth-noting into somewhat-familiar. “Hey, come on, it’s okay. Hey, Bruce. Nothing’s wrong; everything’s fine. Bruce, come on.” Clint rubs his hands along the length of Bruce’s arms, who thinks distantly that’s a dumb thing to do; it’s stupid to be close enough to touch when the monster is so near to the surface.

“ _Get back_ ,” he grits out finally, but Clint doesn’t take it as the warning he should, smiles instead. He pries a chunk of wood out of Bruce’s grip—what remains of an armrest, he realizes dimly—and tosses it into the wastebasket across the room.

“The doctor almost pissed his pants!” Clint announces gleefully, gesturing toward the now empty chair behind the desk as he carefully pulls Bruce upright. “His _face_ , oh man, you should’ve seen it!”

Bruce is shuddering hard from something between an adrenaline crash and a panic attack, trying to push the Hulk back down into place. The monster lets it happen for once; there’s no place to put the anger when so much is directed inward. Clint stuffs pill bottles into the pockets of his own coat, then brushes large splinters off of Bruce’s and works the scientist’s arms into it, fastens up the buttons. Bruce lets him, lets Clint take care of things, even while he’s thinking that’s wrong, because the archer is actually the sick one, the one that should be taken care of right now.

Clint links their arms and walks him out, yammering away now about a bakery that has these really great muffins, as big as your face, almost too big to bite into, and Bruce likes the poppyseed kind best, right? Bruce can barely hear over his frantic inner monologue of _I almost Hulked out in SHIELD Medical and could have killed a doctor and my friend and there was no reason for it oh god why did I come_ —

Medical personnel and SHIELD agents press their backs against walls as they take in Bruce’s green-tinged face and Clint’s sharp, challenging eyes as he guides them out. Bruce stumbles along on legs that simultaneously feel too strong and completely made of rubber, and Clint is, somehow, still finding new things to say about baked goods.

Bruce finally is able to draw a proper breath when they’re back in the car garage and away from people that can be hurt, buildings that can be destroyed. Clint grouses good naturedly at the bite in the air, how cold the steering wheel is, how slowly the engine warms, and life in general, his teeth chattering loudly all the while. Bruce finds himself laughing a little at how over the top it all is, then remembers Clint saying _I feel like I’m going to freeze to death_ and sobers immediately.

“Let me drive,” he manages finally, and Clint scoffs.

“You almost Hulked out in there. No _way_ you’re driving right now.”

“You really shouldn’t be driving either.”

Clint hums in unwilling agreement, shivering and holding his hands up to the vents, only now starting to produce warm air. “Maybe you’re right. We’ll just wait here for a minute or two, then. Until we’re better.”

Bruce sighs, a bitter thing that sounds as tired as Clint looks. “Yeah,” he echoes hollowly, running his thumb along Betty’s letter in his pocket. “Until we’re better.”

 

*******

Natasha is back, with the same crossed arms, semi-murderous expression, and random person in tow.

“This is Faisal. He’s the umbrella man.”

There’s something about the descriptor and her clipped, matter of fact delivery that startles Bruce into laughing. Faisal joins in, eyes crinkly with laugh lines that make him appear younger than what he actually is—a small boned man with knobby shoulders and twisted, arthritic hands. Even Natasha grins a little before she takes up her usual position, glowering and leaning against the filing cabinet.

“I only sell the umbrellas when it is raining,” Faisal says, voice heavy with an accent that Bruce can’t place. “When it is bright out I sell the sunglasses.”

“I admire your initiative,” Bruce says, earning a more genuine smile from Natasha. He cleans the man’s abrasions, the result of a nasty collision with a bike riding courier. It’s careful work; the skin is thin and delicate, like old paper. “What do you sell when it’s cloudy?”

“Sunglasses! Because the sun is only waiting.” 

“And hope springs eternal,” Bruce agrees, tossing extra tape and gauze into an emtpy takeout sack. He throws in a bottle of naproxen after another moment’s thought.

“I tell her that I can pay you.”

There’s something proud in the man’s voice that halts Bruce’s usual brush-off, his well rehearsed _It’s okay; just happy to help. No, really, it’s my pleasure._ “How about you trade me one of your—“ he starts to say instead, then pauses suddenly. “Is it raining outside?” He’s a little horrified to realize he hasn’t left the Tower once in the weeks since the almost-but-not-quite Hulk out at SHIELD, which Barton agreed to keep quiet.

Natasha frowns, but Faisal’s smile is broad. “Today I am the sunglasses man.” He pulls a pair out of his case and presses them into Bruce’s hands. “Take these, Doctor, and go out in the sunshine.”

 

*******

Tony’s teasing often has a bite, or even a casual, unintentional cruelty, but he’s seldom ever actually angry, so it’s a bit of shock for Bruce to see him furious—the shaking, narrow eyed, red faced kind of fury that Bruce knows all too intimately.

“You _fucker_!” Tony snarls.

The biggest surprise is how long it took him to find out. “Listen—“

“Was I supposed to finally hear about it when he just dropped dead?” Tony’s too angry and way too close. “You lying sack of _shit_!”

The Hulk bristles at that, and, frankly, so does Bruce. There’s a lot he’s willing to put up with to avoid an incident, but he has no intention of being Tony Stark’s chew toy either.

“Clint asked me not to tell you. I had to respect that; it was his choice to make.”

“Bullshit.” Tony slams one of the pill bottles down so hard that everything on the table bounces up a little. “You aren’t _that_ kind of doctor,” he sneers, mocking in his emphasis, “so you aren’t bound by any privacy agreements. You’re just the guy running an underground medical service on _my_ goddamned dime! Who the _hell_ do you think you are?”

And that question, right there, hits the terminal limit of Bruce Banner’s patience. He takes a deep breath and pushes Tony away, catching him on both shoulders, the impact and momentum sending him stumbling backward against a table.

“Who am I?” Bruce asks incredulously. “I’m _you_ , Tony. I’m all of you. I’m what happens to the Tony Stark that’s overfunded and encouraged and not held in any sort of check. I’m Natasha and Clint if they’re off of SHIELD’s leash—unstoppable, unrestrained violence. I’m the monster that Captain America could have been, had only a few steps of that experiment gone differently. I’m what Thor becomes if he loses all the homes he’s carved out for himself—raw power with no one to protect. I’m the morality tale of this goddamned team, because I’m what happens to each one of you if you lose control.”

They stare at each other, the silence spinning out into a long moment.

“Jesus, Banner,” Tony says finally, looking a little impressed.

“Now get out and go yell at Clint instead of me.”

“Natasha already handled all the yelling,” Tony says, still eyeing him appreciatively, settling back into his usual bantery tone. “Have you ever heard the two of them really go at it? Adjectives and hyperbole elevated to almost an art form. Maddeningly vague references to past missions. And the _swearing_. Loud, and in so many different languages.” His voice drops conspiratorially. “I shit you not, at one point Natasha was speaking Klingon.”

Bruce gives a grudging smile, accepting Tony’s verbal olive branch.

“So...” Tony dusting his hands off showily, because for him it’s that easy, letting things go, turning from furious to friendly. “What are we working on today?”

And maybe, for once, it’s that easy for Bruce, too. “Want to help me develop a better treatment for Hypopituitarism?”

“You bet your green ass I do.”

 

*******

The others are gone, out training with SHIELD, learning to coordinate appropriate responses—what Bruces guesses is the polite way of attempting to get Tony and Thor to tone their fighting styles down a bit. Clint is still on medical leave and not allowed to participate, and Bruce offers to stay with him. He’s always glad to avoid training, arguing that it’s pointless to try and condition the Hulk, or to attempt more than the most basic “kill this but not that” steering.

They hang out in the common area, Clint stretched out on one of the couches, still tired but with more color in his face now, staring out the window and idly fingering the book that lays atop his chest. Clint often carried it in his back pocket in the team’s earlier days, but Bruce hasn’t seen him with it in a long time.

"May I look at your book?”

The cover is missing entirely and the spine has been repaired with packing tape, layer upon layer, a thick rubberband around the whole thing. The exposed edges of pages are yellowed and curled up, so worn that they’re soft and almost buttery in texture.

Clint shifts uncomfortably, as if forcing himself not to snatch the book back, as if his hands are just too empty without it. “A friend gave me that years ago—and it looks like hell, I know,” he adds defensively, answering a criticism that Bruce hasn't voiced.

"No, it looks just right. You know a book is well loved when the pages are chewed up and dog-eared," Bruce says honestly. He smiles and passes it back.

Clint runs his finger over the rubber band. "I can't even open it anymore; all the pages fall out. What good is a book that you can't even read, huh?"

"It's yours. You don't need a reason to keep it.” Bruce hesitates, then pulls the letter out of his own pocket. “This is from Betty. I can’t read it, either.” He shrugs a little helplessly.

“I get it, you know. Why you hide out here, and why you don’t want to see her.”

“Oh yeah?” Bruce muses evenly, trying to mask his sudden unease.

"Phil—“ Clint says, then hesitates, drums his fingers over the book again, jaw tight. “Phil Coulson always said that I was more 'human' than 'assassin'. But if I'd been less human maybe I could have fought Loki off. Maybe I could have made it stop. But I wasn't strong enough, and the humanity that Phil loved so much led to his death. I guess he didn't admire it so much then."

 _It’s still you inside of it. I felt like it knew me,_ Betty said, years ago now.  _You won’t hurt me, I know you won’t._  She thought, like the Avengers think now, that the Hulk is still mostly Bruce, that it has his decency at the core. They _all_ trust that, confident that they can depend on the man inside the monster, that they will be safe.

Bruce knows better.

“So I get it.” Clint sits up and shoves the book carefully into his back pocket. “If I had thought that could happen—that someone could take everything I knew and was capable of, could twist it until people I cared about were hurt—I would have run. I would have killed myself before I let it happen.”

 _I’m you,_  Bruce had said to Tony. _I’m all of you_. That’s true enough, but maybe it goes farther. Maybe they’re _all_ versions of each other, slight variations of the same pain.

Walls of safety that turn into cages.

Tony’s barbed humor—his first and best suit of armor.

Clint’s reflexive lies and broken book.

Steve shouldering blame to spare the others.

Natasha with her angry eyes, able to see all the people hidden in plain sight.

It’s tempting to go back to the lab, or to stretch out on the other couch, to wait for the others to come back, to let the next thing just happen. Bruce starts to put Betty’s letter back into his pocket, then changes his mind and sets it on the table. He doesn't need to know what's inside. He owes Betty a letter of her own, no matter what this one says.

But first things first.

”Hey, Clint. What do you say we go get some of those muffins—the ones as big as your face, the ones almost too big to bite into. I want to buy one for the Umbrella Man.”

“I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about,” Clint says, eyebrows raised, then shrugs. “But I’m in.”

And when they make it outside the sun is shining.

*******

 


End file.
